Shounen no Uta Series - Reviews

...it would’ve improved the experience is because it would’ve engaged the readers in the mundanity by forcing them to decipher what was happening, just like what happens in Shounen no Uta Series. This series relies only on artwork and simple pictographs to get its stories across, and even with the artwork being total crap, the artist is still able to get across feir point. And if this series had narrated all of the boring things that were going on, similar to what From Star Strings did, then it would’ve been a complete and utter waste of time to read. It’s still not a great series by any means, but at least it has the small, simple game built in of trying to interpret it without dialogue or narration.

Most of the eyes are either just lines or black dots, though there are also some which are dots with a line bisecting them (which I thought was odd) and the mother of the boy in the first chapter has bunched together googly eyes. The fingers are like knives, point and splayed out. There are imprecise and sloppy outlines, and halfassed shading that looks like the artist just scribbled in a corner. Even the rain and action lines look messed up. The perspectives on things often look two-dimensional or out of wack. There’s minimalistic to nonexistent backgrounds.

There are seven short stories, each dealing with a young boy. Many of these stories involve brats or rambunctious boys. Several of them involve poverty. One of them involves accidental blackface (or whatever you’d call the situation where somebody falls into a pile of dirt/crap, comes out with darkened skin, and then walks away humming together with a black kid). The story titled “Window” was unexpectedly dark, to the point that I ended up laughing...